Disappointment, Coping, Getting Adjusted

The emotional trauma of having established themselves as a French-speaking, Catholic community after the U.S. Civil War in an English-speaking, mostly Protestant, New England, industrial town defined, once and for all, the personal status of my relatives (great and grand parents, parents, friends and neighbors) in the social hierarchy of Lowell, Massachusetts from about 1850 to 1939, when I was born.

First Impressions

My impression of the big world around me developed slowly over the early years of my life from the crib to kindergarten (le jardin d’enfance), years later. The long, Depression years had mentally wounded my relatives and many, many other folks in our city of textile and leather workers. Curiously, the wheels of local industry had restarted again the aging smokestacks of large scale industrial production just as the winds of menacing, international conflicts were brewing in Western Europe, Russia and in the Pacific. Non-democratic, populist movements in Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia and in Japan had set the stage for a new, world war of historic proportions.

Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Stalin and xxx became familiar figures in our daily lexicon of stories carried by the Lowell Sun, local radio stations and occasional news clips blended into a double feature shown at the Merrimack, Keith or Strand theaters. Anxiety, fear and patriotism were the driving antidotes to the troublesome, world scene. But on the brighter side, war elsewhere might mean prosperity at home and a better future for you and your children. The whole human situation is curious, indeed.

These were the stages of emotional and economic troubles that plagued the days and nights of Lowell’s shattered labor force beginning with the Wall Street collapse (1929) and lasting to the end of World War Two (1945). I never experienced the full effect of these domestic troubles since my personal memories were still in a formation stage even in 1945 when I reached the age of six.

So, how did I learn about so very many detailed humorous or sad but mundane stories from those days before my birth? Simple! By overhearing fascinating tales from the past that were repeated by visiting uncles, aunts, grandparents and neighbors again and again, and usually over a cup of coffee and a piece of homemade cake. Maybe, true communication is always verbal and direct?

Over the ensuing years and way past my period of professional development at Penn State University, Lawrence Livermore Labs and Sandia National Laboratory, my interest in those tough years that so many Lowellians experienced during the Depression and, later, WWII surged forward again. Maybe, these memoirs would be quite empty without them?

Radio shows featuring Jack Benny and Bob Hope plus melodic comments from Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra had enlivened the sagging morale of Lowell’s nearly crippled, working class. Booze and prayers had also played important, intermediary roles. Somehow, grace and alcohol managed to assuage the financially challenged – broke, actually – men and women in our self-segregated, culturally distinct communities.

My mother reached her thirtieth birthday in 1930 when the big band sound was reverberating across the country. Large orchestras traveled across the American landscape coast-to-coast to entertain dance fans hoping to spend several hours doing the foxtrot, polka and the jitterbug until the wee hours of the morning. She must have gone through several – if not more – pairs of dance shoes in the 1930s to encourage band leaders like Glenn Miller , Artie Shaw and Tommy Dorsey to continue their musical efforts to help the people see a more rosy future.

Daily happenings in our lives seem to have a familiar but uneven rhythm that suddenly evoke bright feelings of past happiness and, often, just seconds later, pangs of deep loss and separation. Emotions bring a sparkle to our days, a zest for living, and more meaning to our time on this planet. The 1930s must have brought, through song, dance and vaudeville, a unique flavor of “carpe diem” – “seize the day” – even as the economic structure of those “living the moment” was crumbling in front of their lives. The next two pages called “Tough Times” and “More Tough Times” will address and analyze these troubled times.